Page 121 of Prey

Everyone stares at him.

“What? I synthesize fertility drugs. I know the biology,” he says.

Lucien snorts. “Only you would make pregnancy sound like a chemistry experiment.”

I watch them bicker and laugh, these men who were tortured as children but somehow found their way back to humanity through each other. They argue over who’s doing dishes like normal people, not like survivors of a government program designed to turn children into weapons.

Nikolai appears at my shoulder, pressing a kiss to my temple. “How are you feeling?”

“Watching your brothers fight over burnt bread is strangely comforting.”

His smile is soft, unguarded in a way I rarely see outside our private moments. “They always get worse during family dinner. Something about being off duty makes them regress.”

“I heard that,” Dominic calls from where he’s helping Raphael plate the roast. “We’re not regressing. We’re relaxing.”

“Same thing with you,” Ezra mutters, not looking up from his phone.

This is their sanctuary. The one place where The Architects can just be nine traumatized men who’ve built something beautiful out of the wreckage of their childhoods. I found it a little ironic that they named their group after the program that made them, but it fits. And right now, they’ve got no masks, no operational protocols, no targets to eliminate. Just a family dinner and casual intimacy that comes from trusting people with your life.

“Help me understand something,” I say as Nikolai takes his seat beside me. “How did you decide to do this? The family dinners, the way you all live together when you’re not working.”

“Raphael’s idea,” Damon says, settling plates in front of us with surprising domesticity. “About three years after we escaped.”

“We were all living separately,” Raphael explains, taking his place at the head of the table. “Trying to be normal, I guess. But normal didn’t work for us.”

“We kept ending up together anyway,” Marcus adds. “Easier to just accept that while we’re dysfunctional apart, we’re a more functional unit together.”

“Speak for yourself,” Darius grins. “I’m perfectly functional.”

The collective snort around the table suggests otherwise.

“What he means,” Lucien says dryly, “is that we tried being alone. Turns out we’re better at being whatever this is.”

“Family,” I say quietly. “This is family.”

The table goes momentarily quiet. These men who’ve killed hundreds of people between them, who’ve built a criminal empire on violence and fear, look almost shy at the word.

“Yeah,” Nikolai says finally. “Family.”

As if summoned by the sentiment, Ezra’s phone buzzes. Then buzzes again. The sharp, insistent sound that means business rather than personal.

I watch his expression change as he reads—the softness leaving his features, replaced by the cold analytical focus I recognize from operational briefings. The transformation happens in the blink of an eye.

“Nik.”

One word, but it cuts through the dinner conversation like a blade. Everyone stops eating, stops talking, stops breathing.

“Another facility?” Nikolai asks, and his voice has changed too. Gone is the man who just kissed my temple. This is The Hunter.

“Virginia. Richmond outskirts.” Ezra’s fingers fly over his tablet, pulling up data feeds, satellite imagery, financial records.“Initial sweep suggests forty to fifty subjects. Ages unknown, but the facility configuration suggests younger.”

My stomach clenches, and not from morning sickness.

“How many personnel?” Damon’s voice is flat, professional.

“Eighteen to twenty-five. Standard security complement plus medical staff.”

“Extraction windows?” Lucien asks.